


Under this pressure, under this weight, we are diamonds

by reyspacescavenger (gallifreyandglowclouds)



Category: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-06 04:33:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11593026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyandglowclouds/pseuds/reyspacescavenger
Summary: Valerian and Laureline get thrown together. It's her first assignment as an agent, and he's more seasoned, but as it turns out, they both have a lot to learn.





	1. About a light year from reality

**Author's Note:**

> So, one of the things that I sort of wished about COTP is that we could have had some background on Valerian and Laureline's relationship. It's not that I don't love it and I will defend it until my dying day, but I would have liked to see the development from what I'm sure was the best meet ugly in the entire universe to 'I want to marry you, but you are the biggest dumbass in the galaxy.' So, I'm going to write it myself. I'll probably eventually embark upon a thirty day OTP challenge, but for now, I'd like to just try out a few short vignettes that will, for the most part, take place before COTP but in the same universe. Also, the rating will likely go from teen and up to explicit at some point.

Captain Valerian scrolls through the tablet which Commander Flitt had passed to him before boarding his ship twenty-five minutes earlier. The dim light of the controls and ambient blue light in the cockpit sheds a glare on the screen, and he fiddles with the brightness on the screen to make the text more visible, wrinkling his nose and grimacing.

(He’s never been great about reading memos.)

Yes, Valerian knows very well that a spatio-temporal agent can’t work alone. He needs a partner, but he’s hesitant to learn to work with someone else after Major Rufus retired. Poor guy, cracked up like an egg after a strange incident with a dinosaur and an aborted religious sacrifice, and retired to some soft detail back on earth where he could sit at a desk for time immemorial. Any second now, his new partner will come through the door of his ship, and he’s going to have to teach some newbie the ropes of space travel.

(Just like someone else did for him, even though it feels like it’s second nature to him now, and he forgets sometimes that he was once planet bound, and wasn’t born hopping around the universe.)

So he reads about his new partner, Cadet Laureline, biomolecular sciences and xenobiology at Harvard (and, well, she, started at fifteen, _of course_ ), followed by Columbia Medical School. And now here’s Valerian, with all of the best education provided by the Marine Corps and life in space, so he sighs, switches the tablet off, and contemplates the oddest of odd couplings that will soon embark upon their new mission.

(He’s giving them, in the most optimistic scenario, two weeks, maybe a month if he’s particularly unlucky. He’s met enough overeducated Ivy League pukes, just using some field time as a quick stepping stone to a comfy job in front of a lonely computer screen in an air-conditioned office. He’ll have a new partner soon, he can just feel it.)

Valerian hears the hatch slide open, and well.

The one thing that his information on Laureline hadn’t told him was that he’d be working with a pretty woman. Also, he notes, grinning a little, the skirts for female officers certainly haven’t gotten longer since he started in the corps. She has _legs for days._

(Actually, maybe he hopes that she’ll stick around for more than a couple weeks.)

There’s a sharpness to her gaze though, a fire burning behind her bright blue eyes that makes him sit up a little straighter, that makes the hair stand up a bit on the back of his neck.

“Captain Valerian?” She asks, saluting briskly. “I’m – “

“Cadet Laureline,” he finishes the sentence for her, and the sharp look he gets from her makes him immediately regret this. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.” He reaches out for a handshake. She doesn’t respond in kind.

She takes her seat beside him, and looks up at the control panel. Alex, the ship’s computer, slides their seatbelts over both their shoulders.

“So,” Valerian says, revving up the controls, “where are we off to today?”

“Oh, pre-revolutionary France,” says Laureline. “Some robot race trying to prop up the French monarchy with stolen future technology. Didn’t you read the memo?”

 

* * *

 

 

As a spatio-temporal agent, one of the first things you learn about going back in time is, _do not change the course of history._ It’s the first rule of time travel school

The course of human history did not, presumably, include Valerian and Lauren stuck in a dungeon, chained to a damp, smelly wall, with what Valerian is pretty sure are rats nibbling at his ridiculous ruffly pantaloons.

“You know,” Laureline says, shifting slightly and trying to tuck more of her skirt between her and the ground, “I think if, just maybe, you’d let me do all of the talking, this might not have happened.”

“How could this have gone any differently?” He says. “It’s not like you speak fluent French or anything!”

Laureline rolls her eyes.

“Oh,” Valerian says. He sighs, and slouches against the wall, his jacket getting troublingly wet with whatever grime is behind him. “Of course.”

“And maybe, just maybe,” Laureline says, wiggling around in her bonds, “if you hadn’t have tried to sleep with Marie Antoinette, then we wouldn’t be up for beheading at dawn.”

“Well, you didn’t have to shoot that guard.”

“He was about to run you through with his sword!”

“I had everything under control.”

“Yeah, well,” she says, rolling her eyes, “I’m guessing that’s why we’re in French prison, and now a squadron of drones are searching Paris for a young lawyer  called Robespierre.”

He’s sure that in some dimension, things could be worse. But Laureline, right from the start, had attempted to be an insufferable know it all. Okay, it’s possible that he made the wrong call when he shut her out of that royal banquet, and her having walked in on him attempting to woo the Queen probably wasn’t his best moment, nor was being chased through the grounds of Versailles, Laureline firing off her blaster at the approaching guards, and Valerian desperately trying to get Alex to lock on to their location and rescue them. He’ll have to talk to someone at the hangar about the geolocation function as soon as they get out of this mess.

Valerian tries to drift off to sleep, ignoring whatever is dripping on his head, when he hears something snap.

His head whips around to see that Laureline has managed to break something off the corset under her skirt

“What are you doing?” Valerian says, brows furrowing in concern.

“Well, we’ve got what, three, four hours to dawn, and thus our impending execution?” She says, rolling a thin piece of what he thinks might be whalebone out from under her skirt with her legs. “One of us has got to think of a way out of here.”

(Not fair, Laureline. He was _totally thinking_ of a plan. He just doesn’t have a whalebone corset that he can fashion a lock pick out of, since all their actual weapons have been impounded by the robot that currently stands watch outside their cell, and no one in human history has accomplished anything of note with a wig and a beauty spot.)

 

* * *

 

The second rule of time travel is (and Laureline has either chosen to ignore or doesn’t know this) is that you attempt not to alert the locals that you are, in fact, a time traveller. They whizz through narrow Parisian streets in their space ship, Laureline at the controls, and Valerian trying to keep a very angry lawyer from Arras under control. He tries to gesticulate at Robespierre with smiles and thumbs up, but he can imagine that the guy has had kind of a rough day, with the whole robot abduction and now a spaceship chase through Paris. Valerian gets why he’s being a bit stroppy, and Laureline’s choppy driving isn’t making things any better.

“Jesus Christ,” he yells, trying to keep the lawyer under control, “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve lost them,” she says, eyes focused forward. A robot ship attempts to cut them off, and she yells at Alex to launch a missile. It explodes in front of them, and Laureline makes a hard left to avoid the fallout.

They drop Robespierre off at a random street corner in Paris, and Laureline mentions to the shocked man, “Le roi, c’est sa faute.” She gesticulates at the burning wreckage behind them.

“Nice touch,” he says as they leap into exospace.

 

* * *

 

They dock again back at Alpha. Valerian throws off his shoulder straps, and leans back in his seat. He closes his eyes and rubs his temples. Suddenly, he feels exhausted, but maybe he needs someone else’s arms to fall asleep in. He briefly considers propositioning Laureline , but it feels kind of early in their relationship for that.

“So,” he says, “same time tomorrow?”

“Sure,” she says, “but I have two conditions.”

“Okay?”

“I get to do all the talking,” she says, picking up her personal bag and making her way towards the hatch, “and you drive.”


	2. just tired of marching on my own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 1 of the thirty day OTP challenge: holding hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So remember how I was like, I'm going to do a thirty day OTP challenge? I lied. I'm sorry. What I've decided to do instead is pick the prompts I like and just write them instead, because trying to do an actual challenge while working full time/going to school/managing life is trying. Heads up for a rating change upwards to E in the near future as well. 
> 
> So here: day 1 of the thirty day OTP challenge: holding hands.

The first time he does it, it feels instinctual, she thinks. It’s just like – it’s just the right thing for him to do. That’s the way they are as partners – a little touchy feely, not afraid to rest a hand on a shoulder or give a hug by way of comfort. Laureline likes it, and every time he touches her, she feels like it says, _I trust you, I want you here, you belong._ She hasn’t had a lot of time in her life where she felt like that that, just embraced unconditionally for her, just plain Laureline.

They’re waiting outside the meeting room for a ritual that Laureline thinks is just plain cruel and unusual – the three month review panel. It’s where  you have to stand alone, without your partner, _which is what frightens her, because she and Valerian work as a unit, always –_ and go over, in excruciating detail, all the missions, all the successes and failures, that have marked a probationary agent’s first three months of service. Then, all these superior officers, these men in their fancy uniforms with gold breastplates, get to decide whether she goes forward, whether she gets to stay in this force.

Her heart is pounding, ears ringing with nerves, and her hands shake. She tries to put a straight face on, the kind of face that she can put on and easily fool the outside world.

Valerian is not fooled, though, which is why he winds his fingers into hers as they stand in the hallway, white and sterile with a headache-inducing fluorescent light. Laureline wonders if they purposely try to make the base look as sterile as possible – or maybe it’s just this part of it – to purposely terrify recruits. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, feeling her lungs expand slowly in her chest, and tries to stay grounded.

Valerian squeezes her hand gently. “Hey,” he whispers, voice low and husky.

Laureline opens her eyes, and turns her head to him. “Yeah?”

“You’re going to do great,” he says, and smiles at her. “Honestly. You have nothing to worry about.” He runs his thumb over the back of her hand in gentle circles. She can feel the hair on her arms rise, and her breath catches a little in her throat.

“You think I don’t know that?”

“Of course,” he says, pressing his lips together in a thin smile. “You know you’re going to rock it.”

What Valerian doesn’t say, and this is important, in her mind at least, is that if she feels okay, he’ll leave, go back to the hangar and work with Alex to make sure the ship is in good shape for their – well, what will hopefully be their – next assignment. He stays by her side, still holding her hands, in his pressed and crisp dress uniform, which she might have ironed for him, but she didn’t have to ask him to come with her. When it was time for her to head over, he was right there, side cap pinned to his head, ready to go into battle with her, even though what they’re facing isn’t shooting back.

“If I get drummed out – “

“You’re not, Laureline. That’s never going to happen, they’re not that stupid -  “

She cuts him off with a sharp glance. “If, on the off chance, I get drummed out, you promise me you’ll keep in touch? You’ll get Alex to remind you once in a while?”

“Don’t be stupid, “ he says. “I won’t need Alex to remind me.”

“Are you sure?”

“One hundred percent,” he says. “I’ll call you every damn day, until you can’t stand to hear from me and you’ll block my number and burn my letters and everything.”

“Oh, fuck off,” she mutters. “I’d never do that.”

The door to the review room opens, and the usher calls Laureline in. She gives Valerian’s hand a quick squeeze, and then turns on her heel and heads inside.

* * *

 

Fourty-five minutes later, she’s all done. She knows the physiological reactions going on inside her body as her hands stop shaking, and her legs turn to jelly beneath her. It’s a damn miracle that she makes it back out to the room.

Valerian is still waiting outside, sitting on the floor fiddling with his tablet. She stands in front of him, hands on her hips, until he looks up at her.

She frightens him so much that he drops his tablet. She smiles, satisfied.

“So?” He says, clamboring to his feet.

“You’re not getting rid of me quite yet,” she says.

Valerian’s eyes light up, his face bursts into a giant smile, and she squeezes her in a giant hug.

“Okay, okay,” she squeaks, trying to wiggle out of his grasp. Valerian is only slightly taller than she is, and yet he can still almost lift her off the ground. “I get it. You’re excited. You’re happy to have me around. You don’t have to act like a golden retriever about it, geez.”

“Oh, yeah,” he says, releasing her and putting his hands on her shoulders. All of a sudden, she notices how close they are. She has to fight the urge to lean in to Valerian, and takes a small step back. “We’re going to have an awesome time.”

“Whatever,” she says. “Let’s go get some food, loser.”

She links her pinky into his as they walk down the hallway.


	3. these words on a page can carry this pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> OTP Challenge day 2: cuddling somewhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The 'Dogs that won't walk past dogs' video is so iconic that it will never die.   
> 2\. The next chapter will result in a rating increase to explicit.

So, Valerian knows that they have good days and bad days at this job. You win some, you lose some, quite often, you get drenched in alien slime, but really, the only the thing that he needs at the end of the day is to come back alive.

The thing is is that you don’t need at the end of the day is the death of a regiment of soldiers and the capture of a couple of agents. Yes, the commander will negotiate with the Thrakken empire, and there’s a pretty high chance that at least two more people will come out of this clusterfuck alive, but Akkenall III is notoriously volatile and violent, and there’s no guarantees on anything.

Laureline had disappeared into the recesses of the ship as soon as Alex took over the controls to get them the hell out of dodge. To be fair, they are both covered alien slime, because that’s what happens when you anger Thrakken rattlesnakes, so he’s probably putting awful stains on the seats or something.

And he’s cold. He needs to go take a shower, but he runs through the mission in his head over and over while staring at the controls, wondering if they could have saved those soliders, those trafficked civilians, except oh no, they can’t.

(You can’t save everyone, Valerian, he thinks, but that won’t stop today’s events from being burned into his brain, and add the nightmarish scenes to the list of things that stops him from sleeping some nights.)

He fiddles with the controls, uselessly, because Alex is piloting them back to base. He’s cold, still covered in slime and gunk, but he so desperately wants to go back and fix everything that had gone wrong today. He eventually gives up, especially after a gentle reminder from Alex that he should maybe go and take a shower if he doesn’t actually want to pilot the ship. He goes and cleans himself up, and stands under the warm steam of the shower, just letting the water run down his back until his head feels vaguely clear, and ten he dries himself off and bundles himself in comfortable clothes.

It doesn’t occur to him to check on Laureline until after all this – he figures that she wants her space, he knows her temper and figures that she just needs some space. He decides to take a spin past her room anyways, because this is their first mission where things have gotten _really, really ugly._

He can hear music playing softly through the door, which is just cracked open, and he knocks gently. He hears nothing, at first.

He knocks again.

“Oh, for fucks sakes, just _come in!_ ”

(Alright, then.)

Laureline has her duvet pulled up to her over her shoulders, knees hugged to her chest, her eyes focused straight down.

“Hey,” he says, approaching her cautiously and settling himself on the edge of her bed, “do you want to talk about it?”

She bites her lip, and shakes her head.

“Yeah, you know that talking makes it easier, right?”

The eyeroll that comment produces is truly devastating. He wants to reach out and comfort her, but he hesitates and rests his hand on the mattress.

“They don’t tell you this in the academy, and it’s so cliché and stupid,” he says, “but you have to remember, you can’t save everybody. And that’s not your fault.”

She nods.

“I know your big brain understands that, Laureline, but you need to accept it, and it takes a long, long time.” He takes a deep breath, and he feels annoyed that he can’t offer anything else other than canned academy instructor talk. “I – I still have to remind myself. Listen, this is the first time that things that have gone south, but it’s not going to be the last, for sure.”

She’s staring at him blankly. Ok, she’s not taking any of this in. His whole inspirational, vaguely patronizing spiel has been for absolutely nothing. What he can tell though, is that she’s experiencing a combination of sadness, rage, and exhaustion – they’d been awake for nearly a day with half an hour of sleep (and that’s nearly twenty-seven hours on Thrak), her eyes are ringed red and bloodshot, and she’s balled up her duvet in her fists and is gripping it so tightly that her knuckles are white.

(Well, here, his ability to help is very limited.)

“Ok, let’s try something else,” he says, “what can I help you with right now?”

“I can’t sleep,” she says. “I’m too – I’m too fucking keyed up, I feel like I can’t breathe, because every time I closed my eyes I just see – “

He shifts towards her and places his hands on her shoulders. “Yeah, I know. I do too.”

“When does it stop?”

He purses his lips, bereft of a good answer.            

“Right,” she sighs.

“Would it be easier,” he says, not exactly sure how this will be received, but hell, it’s worth a try, “if I stayed here? Until you fall asleep?”

She considers his proposition. “Ok, sure.” She shifts over in bed so he can settle under the duvet with her.

“You really need to get some rest,” he says. “Do you have your tablet? I find that sometimes watching something, it takes my mind off things enough that I can function again.”

So that’s how they end up watching cat videos for half an hour, not having been able to agree on an actual movie (but come on, who doesn’t like superhero movies? Laureline, apparently.). Next thing he knows, she’s snoring softly, head on his shoulder, as they watch a golden retriever struggle to walk past a cat.

“Laureline?” he whispers. “I’m going to go now.”

She shakes her head and reaches out an arm to keep in close to her.

“You need to get some sleep,” he says, slowly extricating himself from the fluffy fort that is Laureline’s bedding. “So do I.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she mutters, half-asleep, eyes barely open, “you’re just a nice pillow.”

(Okay, _fine_.)

He grabs a pillow from her side of the bed, and settles it under his head. She moves her pillow closer to his, and positions herself so that she’s draped across his chest, her head still on his shoulder. She’s out cold remarkably quickly.

(His first thought is, well, her bed is nicer than his. And being snuggled up with someone with someone so nice and warm and pretty and wonderful is nicer than his own bare, somber room.

His second thought is, well, fuck, this is _nice_ in a way that he’s not supposed to be. He can’t control the way his heart is beating, or the sudden tenderness that compels him to rub little circles on Laureline’s back with the arm he has wrapped around her.

His third thought: _oh no. No, no, no. This cannot be happening. There are no such things as platonic bed-sharing, especially when he’s within striking distance of kissing her forehead._ )

If he had a small modicum of self-restraint, he’d leave. But in the face of Laureline, he has none, he’s completely in thrall to her and her crazy temper and whims and flawless instinct, so he just falls asleep.

He wakes up a few hours later with her pleasant warmth still snuggled against him. There are myriad things for them to do – he needs to clean the cockpit, they need to debrief with the Minister, they need to start solving the next great problem of the day.

(The thing is, is that ensconced in the cocoon of Laureline’s room, her bed, her embrace, exactly none of that matters. Nothing exists right now but the two of them.)

Alex will wake them anyways. He drifts back to sleep.


	4. a rhapsody for you and me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the NSFW 30 day OTP challenge - sweet and hot. Be warned, I have updated the fic rating, and this chapter is most definitely NSFW. Takes place just after the events of COTP.

She fiddles with the pearl wound in silver that Valerian gave her. Yes, it’s probably supposed to be a ring, but she has the perfect chain to wear it on, so that she can keep it closer to her heart, always. Christ, she can’t believe that she’s even thinking like that now. They’ve been engaged for what, less than twelve hours, and she’s letting herself descend into crazy sentimentalism? Yikes.

There’s no agency housing left on Alpha, not with all the extra regiments and soldiers on the base, so she and Valerian are holed up on their ship. She’s got _plans_ for this evening _,_ and it’s probably nice that there aren’t any inconvenient thin walls to interfere with those. They didn’t exactly capitalize on those two hours that probe – a combination of exhaustion and jumbled feelings of jubilation and trepidation, confusion at the insane cover-up they had rather accidentally uncovered, and pride, incredible overwhelming pride, at having helped restore the planet of Mül to its rightful place in the galaxy. Of course, there’s the small matter of human race’s possible expulsion from Alpha and the Galactic Federation, finding a new commander for the agency, and attempting reparations for the incredible harm done by Filitt’s actions, but for now, all she wants to have his lips on hers again.

She leans back in her chair, swallows hard, and crosses her arms. Jesus Christ, his debrief can’t be that much fucking longer, can it? 

She’s almost drifted off to sleep when she hears the hatch pop open, and she’s out of her chair in a flash, meeting his desperate embrace with her own passion. She buries her face in the crook of his neck, just inhaling him and savouring the moment and breathing him in.

Valerian, clearly, has a different idea and has her back against the wall of the ship with his lips on hers only moments later, one hand cupping her cheek while the other snakes around her waist.

They break apart, resting forehead to forehead, breathing heavily. She’s not used to seeing him so unbridled, so – unsoldierly? – that she smiles in spite of herself, in spite of the flush that’s spreading down her neck and colouring her cheeks.

“What can I say?” he says, trying to act nonchalant, even though his breathing hasn’t really slowed down, “I missed you.”

“Dumbass,” she says, grinning like a fool, “it’s been like, three hours.”

“Hmmm, I think that’s far too long,” he says, punctuating the thought with a kiss just below her jaw. His lips leave a trail of kisses down her neck, slow and easy, and she gasps, pulling him closer as her hands slip up and under his shirt, smoothing over soft skin and toned abs. He grinds up against her, and they both groan in concert at the sensitivity and heat, and suddenly, Laureline wishes that they both didn’t have so much clothing on.

She laces her fingers in his and leads him to her bedroom, because she knows what his room is like, and if they’re going to fuck for the first time then _dammit,_ they’re going to do it somewhere nice.

The awkwardness that comes over her when suddenly, they’re both sitting on her bed together and she’s trying to figure out what happens next, threatens to derail her whole plan. This isn’t what she’d pictured their first time being like – there’s no roses, no candles, no beachside cabana, just the reality of both of her shaky hands and his beautiful blue eyes and his –

As if sensing her anxiety, Valerian cups the back of her neck and kisses her gently. Resting their foreheads together he asks, “Are you okay?”

She nods, heart fluttering in her chest. “Just need a second.”

“Ok,” he says, stroking the back of her neck and kissing her forehead. “You know I’m going to take care of you, right?”

How hopelessly sweet of him. “Yeah, always,” she says, nodding. “We’re partners, right? We take care of each other.”

He grins, and scoots up to the top of her bed, and she crawls after him, settling in to his lap and straddling his legs. His hands slide under her shirt as soon as he can reach, and somehow in the jumble of lips and hands they’ve both lost their tops and he’s fiddling with the clasp on her bra. He finally gets it and she shrugs it off, and the skin on skin contact as he pulls her in again is warmth like she’s never known. He traces shapes on her back with his fingertips as she grinds into his lap. She can feel the obvious bulge in his pants and relishes the short moans he makes every time she grinds down on it. She can just imagine that the friction must be killing him, which satisfies her – she wants to make him work for this, wants to make him squirm a little.

“Hey,” he whispers in her ear, and good god, the way he sounds when he’s so wrecked like this is more than wonderful to her ears, “can I – “

He can’t finish the sentence, just whines a little as she rocks into him, but his hand is resting on her inner thigh and she thinks she might have an idea of what his plans are. She shifts off his lap and lies back, propping herself up on her elbows.

“All yours,” she says. God, his eyes are so dark, lips shiny and hair tousled, and he’s never looked so beautiful to her as he does in this moment.

He settles himself between her open legs and hooks his fingers in the waistband of her pants. She lies back and lifts up her hips so he can slide her pants and underwear off, and then he’s on her, rolling one nipple gently between his fingers while swirling his tongue around the other one. She eggs him on, rocks her hips up against him and plays with his hair, moaning appreciatively and wondering what else that talented tongue might be able to do.

He drops a line of kisses down her ribcage and over the soft swell of her belly, tasting every inch of skin. She shivers a little, as his hands trace down along his hips, and it’s all so gentle and sweet that she thinks she might just have died and gone to heaven.

Valerian presses a kiss to the top of her hipbone, and she instinctively tries to open her legs wider for him. He moves to her inner thigh, kissing and biting gently along the sensitive skin. One of his fingers probes strokes her sex, and even though his touch is gentle, the air rushes out of her lungs in a gasp.

He slips a finger inside of her, and it goes easy, because she’s hot and wet with anticipation already. He looks up at her, checking in, and she nods back at him before closing her eyes.

His thumb gently glides over her clit and her hips buck, just a little. He keeps fucking her with his finger, slow and easy, and tastes her with his tongue, running it up and down slowly between his finger and her clit. Laureline can feel a familiar heat coiling itself in her stomach, not quite ready to unspool yet. She balls one hand in the sheets as her hips starting grinding against the bed. She didn’t want to go quite this crazy for it, wants to hold herself back a little, but with his tongue gently swiping her clit and a second finger filling her up, she can’t help it.

He comes up for air, almost gasping for breath, and says, “God, you taste so fucking good.”

She has no easy response for that, only another moan, and he goes back, teasing her inner thighs with his lips and tongue, only to go back to the wetness. She’s almost never felt him like this, so unrestrained and giving. He’s rocking his hips against the bed, and the fact that he’s so _in to this_ just blows her mind. He’s not quite giving her enough to tip her over the edge, but it’s glorious, wonderful torture. Her free hand gently tousles his hair, too hesitant to grab tightly, except when he swirls his tongue on her clit and she nearly yells with the pleasure.

“Valerian,” she gasps, not sure if she can control her breathing enough to finish her thought, “please. For the love of god, just stop teasing.”

He immediately obliges her, fucking into her faster and curling his fingers inside of her. His tongue lavishes her clit with attention, sucking and licking, and now she’s almost sure she’s babbling some combination of his name and invocations to various gods, but then she’s coming hard around his fingers and she can’t quite say anything anymore, just moan as his fingers slow and his tongue on her oversensitive clit drives aftershocks through her body.

It takes her a couple minutes to come back to herself. Valerian lies beside her, gently kissing her, and she can still taste herself on his lips. He kisses her forehead and rocks his hips in to hers, the fabric of his pants rough against her legs. She deftly unbuckles his belt, and between her pawing and his wiggling, they manage to get them off. She quickly relieves him of his underwear, and his cock springs free, hard and red and leaking precum. He lies on top of her again, rutting his cock against her belly and kissing her hard. They carry on like this for a while, and she starts to wonder if he just wants this, doesn’t want to fuck quite yet, until he pulls back suddenly.

“Do you want it,” she says, reaching a hand between them and palming the head for emphasis, “like this?”

He shakes his head, draws back and kneels between her legs. “Need to see you.”

She nods. He settles himself back against the pillows at the head of her bed as she grabs a condom from the drawer on her nightstand. She rolls it on to him, and he screws his eyes shut and moans a little as she does. She can sense that he’s wound tight, ready to explode, and mentally commends him for holding on this long.

She’s still slick, so he slides in easily as she lowers herself on to him, straddling his legs. They moan in concert as she takes him in, all the way to the hilt, and starts rocking her hips. It’s just on the edge of too much for her, she just came not that long ago, and she wonders if he can hold out long enough for her to do it again. He’s letting out these little breathy moans and bucking his hips up to meet her rhythm

She slows down the rhythm of her hips, raising herself so that he almost slips out of her, and then she slowly lowers herself back down. Her legs are shaking so hard that it’s difficult to control, but his open mouth and reverent look make her keep trying. He puts a hand on her hip to still her, his cock still buried inside her wetness, and they lock eyes.

“Needed you so much,” he says, words almost slurred with pleasure. His hand smooths up and down her back and she leans in to kiss him as she starts rocking her hips again. He slips a hand between them and starts thumbing her clit, and she groans, relishing in the pleasure-pain pull that ensues.

“Can you,” he stammers, between kisses, “can you come again?”

“Maybe,” she says, feeling like she’s barely breathing, and he presses at her clit harder. She groans. He’s fucking up into her harder now, more desperately, and she tries to meet his rhythm. It’s intense, and she can feel herself clenching around him as his hips stutter and the rhythm falters. He keeps up the pressure on her clit, though, and soon enough she’s close to coming again, heat surging through her body.

“Laureline, love,” he gasps, and it’s like the endearment, the gentle words almost push her closer to the edge, “god, I need you so much, need to feel you, need to have you all the time, need you with me.” His eyes close, and she’s not even sure he’s in control of himself any more, one hand thumbing circles her clit and the other one resting on her hips. “God, I love you so much.”

It’s something about the sweet talk, or maybe she just can’t handle the stimulation, but she comes again with a sob, clenching around his cock and grinding her hips down. He thrusts into her three times quick, and then he’s done, coming with a groan. He pulls her against his chest, slick with sweat, arms pulling her tightly against him.

“Love you too,” she whispers in his ear, when her brain figures out how to use words again. His cock slips out of her as it softens, and she misses the connection. She knows she needs to get up and grab them a towel or something, but she doesn’t want to feel the cold air, can’t quite disentangle herself from him yet.

When she does, she quietly makes her way to the bathroom next door and grabs a couple of tissues and a damp cloth. He doesn’t move while she’s away, lying on his back on the bed, eyes closed. She cleans herself up and then rolls the condom off his cock. He winces at her touch as she cleans him off, then disposes everything in the wastebasket and lies back down beside him.

“You good?” she asks.

“Never been better,” he says.

“Tell me again why we waited this long for this?” She asks.

“Had to take a few detours first,” he says. “But now, I’m home.”

He wraps his arms around her and kisses her forehead.


End file.
